


Caught Off Guard

by chat_et_bug



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Nathalie's backstory, gabenath, gabriel why, poor nathalie, queen wasp spoilers, these two will be the death of me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 05:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16257197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chat_et_bug/pseuds/chat_et_bug
Summary: MAJOR QUEEN WASP SPOILERSContrary to popular belief, Nathalie Sancoeur was not a robot.She just had to act like one.Nathalie has never let anyone around her see her true feelings for Gabriel. But when Gabriel lets his guard down, she can finally let down hers.The events that led up to Nathalie hugging Gabriel - and what happened afterwards.





	Caught Off Guard

**Author's Note:**

> I had never been much of a gabenath shipper but then queen wasp happened and I had to write about these two. 
> 
> This fic is based on what happened in queen wasp along with some of my headcanons on why Nathalie loves Gabriel.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Contrary to popular belief, Nathalie Sancoeur was not a robot. 

She just had to act like one.

Being Gabriel Agreste’s personal assistant was no easy feat. Nathalie would never forget the rigid set of interviews she had to go through before being offered the job. It had only been a few weeks after the disappearance of Emilie Agreste that she had seen the advertisement, and had immediately applied.  
Nathalie had always admired Gabriel Agreste’s work from afar. She could see that his designs were incredibly well thought out and the eye-catching patterns and textures he used to fabricate his designs were something else.

He was something else.

Nathalie had been very nervous at the interview; after all, you didn’t meet your idol every day. However, she didn’t let a single emotion show at all the questions he fired at her, and answered him as calmly and professionally as she could manage. 

Almost all of the other candidates were sent from the office crying once Gabriel had finished with them. 

Sure enough, the job was hers.

If the interviews were hard, that was nothing compared to working 12 hours a day at the Agreste mansion. Although Nathalie’s tasks were only supposed to be managing Gabriel’s office work and making sure it was sent to the correct place at the correct time, she found herself doing numerous other activities, from answering the doorbell to home-schooling Gabriel’s son, Adrien. He was very different from Gabriel, his green eyes and blond hair made him the spitting image of his mother, and his personality seemed to light up the otherwise dull and gloomy mansion. Later, after Adrien persuaded his father to let him go to school, she had to organise his jam-packed schedule. All this, however, she could manage easily.

Finding out that her boss was the supervillain that terrorised Paris, on the other hand, was a lot to take in. 

“Nathalie, you are proving to be an outstanding assistant so far,” Gabriel had said.

“Thank you, sir.” Nathalie hadn’t even smiled, but her heart was soaring at his rare compliment.

“I think I can trust you with my secret can’t I?” Gabriel had smiled wryly.

“Of course, sir.”

Gabriel had then explained to her all about his grand plan to bring his wife back to life. At first, Nathalie had thought it was crazy, but when he had shown her the miraculous, a magic jewel with the power to give immense power to ordinary people and his Kwami, Nooroo, a little purple bug-like thing, she decided he was barbaric. All he needed now, he told her, was the power of creation and destruction and Emilie would be his once more. By that point, Nathalie thought he was absolutely mad, but it made him happy and that was all that mattered.

For months, Nathalie put up with Gabriel akumatizing practically every citizen in Paris. Almost every day, she would see him go down to the basement, hear his evil laugh as he released an akuma, and a few roars of frustration when the akumatised victim failed to steal the miraculous. Sometimes, he would stay down there for ages, which meant he was visiting Emilie. For months, she pretended it didn’t bother her one bit that Gabriel was spending so long trying to rewrite the past that he forgot to live in the present. That he never spent time with his son, or left his house. He was certainly resilient, she granted him that, but how long would it take him to realise that Emilie was never going to come back?

She had almost quit at one point.

Adrien had stumbled across the grimoire and stashed it in his bag. When Nathalie saw him on the many security cameras stationed around the mansion, she had smiled. The book was extremely important according to Gabriel, even though he couldn’t decipher the strange text it was written in. She had almost felt bad when she showed him the pictures of Adrien stealing the book and his face when his son confessed that he had lost it, but the thought of him finally quitting this ridiculous scheme gave her a glimmer of hope. 

Instead, Gabriel had only gone and akumatized himself. 

He explained to her that he had to do this, in order to make sure that Ladybug and Chat Noir wouldn’t suspect him of being Papillon. He would be called The Collector and he would “collect” various people and items in his book.

“I might even be able to get their miraculous, Nathalie. By the way you don’t mind if I collect you, do you?”

“No, sir.” Nathalie had wanted to scream at his complete disregard for people’s feelings- no wonder he was so bad at akumatizing people- but as usual, she remained poker faced.

This plan at least, had worked; Gabriel reported back to Nathalie that the two heroes now didn’t suspect him at all. Even better, Adrien’s classmate had returned the grimoire, not that it mattered much as he had already had a copied all the pages of the book onto his tablet. That was the moment when Nathalie had wanted to give in her notice; Gabriel hadn’t even bothered to tell her he had spare copy of the grimoire. What else wasn’t he telling her?

But she couldn’t leave him. She loved him too much.

For a while after that, business had resumed as normal. Gabriel carried on akumatizing. Nathalie carried on pretending she was fine, but every day she felt more and more affection for him. She loved the way he wouldn’t settle for anything less than perfect. She loved that he always did whatever the hell he wanted, even though it was often incredibly stupid. Most of all she loved that deep, deep down, he did care about people that were close to him. After all, what normal person would go to the lengths he did to get back his wife and make sure his son was safe? Maybe one day, Nathalie thought, he would care for her like that. 

But everything changed the day Audrey Bourgeois came to Paris. She was an easily displeased woman, with a short sharp temper. 

“She gets cross and upset at the slightest thing, Nathalie!” Gabriel had said gleefully. “She’ll be the perfect akuma victim, and I know she’ll be the one to get the miraculous for me. In fact, if she doesn’t, I’ll give up Nooroo.”

Nathalie thought of someone else who also got cross and upset at the slightest thing and bit back a smile. She knew he wasn’t serious about giving up Nooroo. “How do you plan to akumatise her, sir?” she asked.

“By seating her in the second row,” Gabriel said simply. 

“Do you really think that will work?”

“Trust me, Nathalie. You break the news to her and then I’ll send the butterfly.”

Nathalie nodded. She did as he asked and instructed Audrey to sit in the second row. A few minutes later, she was akumatised. As usual, the akumatisation never went to plan. Style Queen’s first move was to attack Adrien, who was walking on the catwalk. It pained Nathalie to see the boy she desperately wanted to treat as her own son turn into gold. She wandered if Gabriel, safely in his lair, was feeling the same too. 

Soon enough, Ladybug appeared and as usual, she managed to save the day, even without Chat Noir who never turned up. The akuma was captured, Audrey and Adrien were returned to normal and Paris was safe once more.

The next day, Nathalie was pushing a trolley of books into the office when she saw him. He was sitting in a chair, his glasses were off and his fingers were resting on the bridge of his nose. For the almost two years Nathalie had worked for him, never had she seen him show any form of weakness. She wanted nothing more than to finally let her guard down and wrap her arms around him. 

And that was exactly what she did.

They stayed that way for a long time, Nathalie hardly daring to believe what was happening.

“Have you really given up?” she whispered softly. 

A curt nod from him was all the confirmation she needed and she wanted to explode with happiness at this breakthrough. Gabriel was finally ready let go of the past and she would be there with him every step of the way. She began to imagine a future where she was no longer his assistant, but his wife. A stepmother to Adrien. One thing was for sure, things were certainly going to change in the Agreste family. 

At that point, she really had believed that, especially when Gabriel left his house that very same day and had given his son a much needed hug. From the side of the catwalk, she had watched the father and son with pride, as the paparazzi had snapped away. It was all going better than she had ever imagined it. 

Then Chloe Bourgeois had to ruin everything. All it took was for her to transform into Queen Bee in front of everyone to send Gabriel back into his old habits. From the demand to go home immediately, to the hurried “just one more time,” he had whispered to her, Nathalie knew that it all that had happened earlier was for nothing.

“You said you had quit.” Her tone had a hint of accusation in it as she watched him rise up from the basement, back to the office. 

“I can’t give up, Nathalie- I miss her too much.” He was almost pleading with her.

“I understand… sir.” Nathalie had just about managed to stop the lump in her throat from turning into full blown sobs. She quickly left the office and shut the door behind her, breathing in deeply to calm her down.

Contrary to popular belief, Nathalie Sancoeur was not a robot. She just had to act like one.

Nathalie Sancoeur was a human. With wild, crazy emotions.

Emotions that could get her akumatised.

**Author's Note:**

> So I might update this after Catalyst and Mayura air, considering they'll probably expand a bit more on Gabenath, but we'll see what happens!
> 
> Find me on tumblr @chat-et-bug


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